iPAD

[Fragony]

Anyone have one? Mom gets a free one and I can have it, but I don't know what to make of, it's not a laptop and that keyboard looks really unpractical, and it isn't a phone. Heard it uses phone networks, do I have to pay per minute when there's no wifi acces point? Bookstore looks cool, do you have to pay by creditcard? And is it nice on the eyes, don't see me reading a book on it. Weird product but it's a huge succes, but you know how Applelites are

[CBR]

I have one but just the wifi version. If you have a 3G version you need some data plan just like for a smartphone. Or just not use 3G at all.

You also need an itunes account but I actually don't think a credit card is needed for that: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2534

But you do need some way to buy apps and books though. Without anything but what comes with the iPad, you are losing out on a lot of potential. But there are of course a lot of free apps too.

What to use an iPad for? Well I guess that varies from person to person. FWIW I can give a quick rundown on how I use it. But in general I'm now able to do a lot of computer related stuff without being forced to sit in front of my pc. So in the living room or at the breakfast table etc I now have a great and very mobile device. And something that a net/notebook would not be able to do in the same way.

Photoalbum: having thousands of photos on it is quite neat.
RSS feed reader: never bothered with that on my PC but for the iPad it is a great way of checking out news.
Ebooks: mainly for PDF files and occasionally epub/Kindle books. IMO you simply won't find a better way of handling PDF's on a handheld device. For game manuals there is no need to print it or alt tab out all the time.
The casual stuff: wiki, IMDB, youtube and what else. Some of it using the browsers or just one of the apps.

When it comes to reading books then getting the right brightness level is important. It is easy enough to use a way too high level that will hurt your reading experience. But it is possible to lower it down within the reading app, so it all comes down to experimenting until you have found the right level that fits you.

And yes it is a bit of weird product at first. I guess it cannot satisfy the needs for everyone, but it has become a rather indispensable device for me now. It should perhaps be seen more for consuming content than creating it.

[TosaInu]

I don't have one, but it makes me wishing I did, maybe. It's a fairly large screen to easily read PDF files, the screen of other book readers is way too small for the articles I read. It having a browser and the option to run apps is nice too.

I have some uncertainties that hold me back from getting one. The screen should still be a little bit larger for me, how long does the battery hold, no USB (?), costs for the data plan, expecting the release of similar and cheaper (not necessarily Apple).

[CBR]

I have some uncertainties that hold me back from getting one. The screen should still be a little bit larger for me, how long does the battery hold, no USB (?), costs for the data plan, expecting the release of similar and cheaper (not necessarily Apple).

Personally I would not want a larger display as it would start to become unwieldy both in size and weight. The current display works ok for A4 PDF's IMO.

Lack of USB. Well it does depend a bit on how you plan on using a tablet I guess. I can access my external HDD that is on wifi 24/7. Plus you have options like cloud storage: dropbox with 2 GB and SugarSync with 5 GB for free. Google also has 1 GB IIRC.

Can't speak for dataplans in the Netherlands. A quick check for Denmark shows stuff like €20 for 5GB/month. Another operator has a €10 with 500 MB included and a max cost of €25 with a rule of max 20GB traffic.

Actually a quick search shows this http://www.dutchdailynews.com/ipad-users/ Dutch iPad Users Pay Among the Highest for Data Worldwide

So perhaps one should use it sparingly.

But if you have no immediate use then you might as well wait a few months and see what comes up. There will be several Android tablets coming this spring/summer and the iPad2 should also arrive in Europe early summer or something.

edit:

Battery life. Reading with low brightness (which is standard unless you are outside) should get you about 12 hours. Watching video through wifi and with max brightness, I think I tried that several months ago but can't remember the specific number of hours, should be at least 6 hours. It basically means that even with heavy usage a fully charged iPad will last the whole day.

[Xiahou]

We handed out 10 of them from the IT department where I work. I got to play around with them a little while I was prepping them.... To sum up... I'm not really sure what it's trying to be.

As an e-reader, I think it's a bit on the heavy side and I vastly prefer electronic ink displays to a backlit LCD. It's serviceable as a web browser, but I still prefer a netbook with a real keyboard. The touch screen is very good, but it's still not a keyboard.

The screen is great for media like pictures and videos, but I could never justify the costs to buy myself one. For a couple hundred less than an iPad costs, I could buy a Nook and a dual core netbook and have two devices that are eminently better at performing their intended tasks. Now, if I was getting one free as Frag is... that would be fine.

[TosaInu]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_techne...berry-playbook

By electronic ink displays you mean something like the Sony e-book reader Xiahou? I heard good reviews about those from addict readers. Very promising for me, as reading from a LCD indeed tires the eyes. The iPAD doesn't have that mode and/or other means to support hours of comfortable and easy reading?

For a pocket-book, a small screen is ok, but that's not so for A4 or larger sized articles. When sitting behind a desk a PC is ok, but when mobile or not behind the desk, even a laptop becomes an ordeal when reading a lot. As for the weight: stacks of paper can be heavy too.